Skyhawks open up in mid-season form

By John Bombatch Sports Editor jbombatch@civitasmedia.com

April 8, 2014

FAIRBORN — Cold and rainy weather had already delayed the start to his season, and so first-year Fairborn coach Josh Patrick could be forgiven if he had any nerves prior to Saturday’s baseball doubleheader at Wright State University, with Dayton Christian.

But after a 9-5 first-game win and a 12-2 run-ruled second-game win, it was understandable as to why Patrick had no fear.

“Whenever you can come away with two wins on a Saturday, that’s pretty nice,” he said. “There’s still a lot of things we have to work on — some base running mistakes here and there, we didn’t take advantage of some things, we had some errors that they ended up capitalizing and getting some runs on — but we had guys getting bunts down, and we had several timely hits. You can’t ask for better execution than what they displayed today.”

It’s fairly common to expect a team’s offense to take a little while to catch up to other team’s pitching in the early going of a season. Batters just need more time to work on their timing and their swing. But despite playing in their first game of the season, the Skyhawks were in good shape at the plate.

The Skyhawks turned in a combined 18 hits in the two games, while Dayton Christian had 15.

“I don’t know whether right now is a good time to comment or not,” he said with a smile. “We just didn’t play our game today. In both games, we just didn’t play well. Sam Worley played well, but we don’t have much else to talk about.”

DC’s Worley was a combined 5-for-7 at the plate as the Warriors’ clean-up hitter. He had a double and drove in three runs in the first game.

In that first game, Fairborn rapped out eight hits. Austin Krug, the Skyhawks’ no. 9 hitter in game one, led the way with a 2-for-3 plate performance and a run batted in. Kyle Keeton, Ty Boedicker, Stephan Coghlan, Brent Grody, Ryan Profitt and Aron Childers also singled in the first-game win.

Boedicker had a pair of hits, including a two-run double as part of a 3 RBI performance in game two. Keeton, Nick Kimmey, Josh Chavez and Krug each came up with late-game bunt singles, and Grody turned in a sacrifice bunt, in the second-game win. Profitt drove in three Skyhawks runs on a single to right field and a sacrifice fly to left.

“These guys were able to step up like this and play well during our two scrimmage games, so I wasn’t surprised at all,” Patrick said. “I have a lot of confidence with every guy we have in our lineup, and there’s guys on the bench will will step up. There’s not many holes on this team right now.”

Fairborn (2-0) turned in nine stolen bases in the two games, with two of those coming from Keeton in the lead-off spot.

Grody was credited with the pitching win in the first-game start; Profitt earned the pitching win in the second game.